Chapter Thirteen
The cabin was eerily quiet when Maeve finally returned from the barn. It felt reminiscent of that horrible winter night, as well as the six lonely months that had followed suit. Panic began to well up inside her, only to settle as Lila babbled noisily at her hip.
‘Right. I ain’t alone anymore.’
Taking a deep breath, Maeve walked around the cabin in search of answers.
The tea tray had been cleared away, its bread and jam put back into storage, while the cups sat listlessly in the wash basin.
It was obvious Joshua and Ms. Miller had taken their leave…
but part of Maeve wondered if Jed had as well.
She moved to the couch, settling Lila on the floor as she sank into the cushioned back.
“Wouldn’t blame him if he did leave,” she murmured.
She felt something strike hard inside her chest, and it occurred to her how much she wanted Jed to return.
She was mad at him, certainly...but she didn’t want him to leave.
At the very least, she didn’t want him to leave with such bad blood between them.
Maeve idly watched as Lila took to crawling around the floor. As expected, the toddler went straight for Maeve’s father’s old armchair, settling back into her routine of pulling herself up to stand.
Maeve observed quietly. A gentle warmth soothed her still-frayed nerves, twisting beneath her skin like bits of barbed wire. “I weren’t very nice to Ms. Miller, were I, Lila?”
Lila let out a cantankerous grunt, her little legs wobbling from the weight of her body.
“I suppose she ain’t our enemy,” Maeve went on. “She just wants what’s best fer you.”
Lila leaned against the chair, smacking her arms furiously against the seat while bouncing up and down.
“Jed wants what’s best fer you, too.” Maeve groaned, sliding off the couch and kneeling next to Lila. “I just–I hate it when he talks like that! Like he ain’t able to do something! He does all sorts of 'somethings' all the time!”
Her hands hovered beneath the toddler’s arms, catching her full weight when Lila’s legs finally gave out. Lila straightened immediately, realizing she no longer had to hold up her body, and threw her arms across the armchair’s seat once again.
“Did he not think we were doing right by you?” Maeve asked. “I mean, I thought things were going fairly well. I thought…” She paused, blinking furiously as her eyes began to sting.
She’d thought she was doing better. That’s what it ultimately boiled down to; after a month of struggle, Maeve finally felt like she was getting the hang of being a motherly figure.
She enjoyed discovering all of Lila’s little quirks, and it was devastating to think she’d miss out on those future discoveries.
“I know it ain’t safe here,” she admitted softly. “But the world ain’t safe, y’know?”
Lila blew a raspberry at Maeve, producing an impressive spurt of spit bubbles.
Maeve chuckled, turning the toddler toward her so she could clean her face with the hem of her sleeve. “Maybe…it’s silly. Thinking you can move through the world all by yerself.”
Lila blinked, rubbing her face where Maeve had just cleaned.
“I mean, how else would you learn if we weren’t here to help you?” There was so much more Maeve wanted to learn–about Lila, about Jed, about herself. The last six months felt as if she’d been trapped inside a cocoon, curled up tight and unwilling to consider breaching the surface.
“Then some loud man came banging at my door in the middle of the night,” Maeve mused. “And he brought with him the sweetest li'l thing.”
Lila stuck her entire hand in her mouth and began suckling loudly.
Another sigh escaped Maeve. She was talking to a baby who was too young to answer. She wanted to be talking with Jed. She needed to apologize to him, God willing he came back to the house at all. Maeve shook the dark thought away; she wanted to trust, or rather, continue trusting him.
“What d’you say we get some dinner going, an’ you save that there hand fer later?”
Lila babbled incoherently, spit trailing out of her mouth and down her chin in long, thin strands.
***
It was well into the evening when Maeve heard the sound of wagon wheels coming up the front drive.
She looked up from her knitting, setting it aside on her bed before moving cautiously toward the window.
Much to her relief, it wasn’t bandits she spotted, but simply Jed hopping down out of Samuel’s wagon.
A thrill of excitement sent her out of her room, though not before doubling back to pick Lila up off the floor where she’d been quietly playing.
He hadn’t run off. He’d kept his promise.
As Maeve entered the living room, her good mood began to falter. She’d had time to resolve some of her bigger feelings, but Jed had every right to still be upset. And they hadn’t exactly reached a conclusion on what to do with Lila…
Maeve found herself pausing in front of the door. She stared at the locks, trying to work out in her mind exactly how she should approach things. Would an apology be appropriate? Or should she just start talking about everything she’d realized while he was gone?
‘He ain’t completely innocent in our fight either,’ she scowled to herself.
There wasn’t any more time for thinking, though, as Jed had already begun to knock on the front door. Maeve went about undoing the locks one-handed, the other holding a squirming Lila who seemed desperate to get on the ground.
Finally, the door swung open. Jed stepped inside, looking as stone-faced as he had the first time she’d met him. Maeve gently closed the door behind him, resetting the locks before turning to face him fully. “You, uh…went on a ride with Samuel?”
She’d been wrong; Jed wasn’t completely holding back his emotions.
There was an obvious discontent roiling inside him, something that was causing him a great deal of pain.
She saw it now, through the slightest furrow of his brow, the tremble at the corner of his downturned lips.
He was upset, or conflicted, about something.
Had he reconsidered what he’d said to her about Lila?
Either way, Jed didn’t seem keen on holding a conversation with Maeve. Unfortunately for him, she’d been dying to speak to him for hours.
“Hey, Jed?”
Silence.
“I–I’m sorry about the way I yelled at you today.
” An apology really was the best way to start the conversation.
She hated doing it, but Maeve hoped that her show of vulnerability would inspire him to do so as well.
“It… I know you weren’t meaning what I thought.
And it weren’t fair of me, attacking you like I did.
‘Specially since I weren’t making much sense myself. ”
He remained still and silent. It was starting to irritate her.
“Jed?” Maeve took a step toward him, only to catch the panic in his gaze. His once-bright grassy eyes had wilted, replaced with something she couldn’t quite name.
Something was wrong. Something was wrong, and he wasn’t going to willingly tell her what it was, she could tell.
“Jed, what happened?”
He flinched.
“Jed, talk to me. We ain’t gonna solve nothing if we stop talking to each other.”
He stared at her incredulously. “Awful bold of the kettle to be calling the pot black.”
His words stung sharply. He was right, but Maeve wasn’t about to admit that. “I don’t wanna fight no more, Jed.”
Jed looked ready to say something, but he stopped. Considered his words. Then let out a tired sigh. “I don’t, either. But I’m still hurting, Maeve. That ain’t gonna change tonight.”
She let out a quick breath, trying not to sound irritated.
He was right, of course. He had every right to still be hurt, to not accept her apology right away.
But it frustrated her in a way she couldn’t explain.
Maeve didn’t like knowing Jed was upset with her.
And she didn’t like the idea that he was keeping his hurt to himself.
She didn’t like him being closed off.
“Why can’t it change tonight?” Maeve asked. “I said I were sorry! I can’t do nothing else ‘bout it but apologize.”
"Let it lie fer now, Maeve.”
It felt like an impossible request. And, perhaps some part of her knew she was being childish.
But Maeve couldn’t help herself. She wanted the pit in her stomach to go away, and it wouldn’t unless Jed wasn’t upset with her anymore.
“I’m tryin’ to make things right, Jed! And—and yer holding fast to yer grudge like a starving dog wit’ a bone! ”
“You did it first, Maeve!”
Jed’s voice cracked, taking Maeve by surprise. The agony in his voice was so clear; it sliced at the pit in her stomach and made it even bigger. She’d messed up. She’d pushed him too far and made things worse. “J-Jed-”
“When you treated that woman like she were the enemy, when you stormed off and left me in that room all on my own-?” The stone facade had broken, and Jed’s emotions were pouring out in rippling waves.
He looked physically incapable of stopping himself, and every wor he spoke was like another dagger in Maeve’s heart.
It was made all the worse that she’d been the one to cause this.
“Jed, w-wait-”
"You–you’re the one who ignored me in the first place! Kept me in the dark about whatever wild feelings grabbed hold of you!
Jed let out a trembling exhale, but it was clear he wasn’t finished yet. “We both agreed Lila should go to the orphanage. And then, what, you suddenly changed your mind and decided not to tell me? How’s that fair? How’s that working together?! How’re you any different from–?”
His voice cut out at the shot of a gun. The air quickly filled with the scent of sulfur and Lila’s wails, and Jed froze in place.